


Blind Attainment

by DekuPrince



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series)
Genre: Gen, Mentions of past Pokemon abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-15
Updated: 2015-03-15
Packaged: 2018-03-17 22:55:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3546866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DekuPrince/pseuds/DekuPrince
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Silver reflects on how far he's come as a trainer, and how his journey has changed him for the better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blind Attainment

There are tears in Silver's sight mere seconds after waking up, brought on by nothing but the bitter cold that hits his face the moment he peeks out of his sleeping bag. Ducking back inside he pulls an irritable Sneasel to his chest. Soft growls meet the contact, only meaning one thing; Sneasel wants to be out in the cold, not half suffocated in the warmth and velvety dark cocoon.  
  


Bracing himself to emerge again doesn't stop the cold from slapping him in the face with a physical kind of force. Wind cuts through his skin and wraps icy fingers around his nerves, and his eyes water enough that he blinks tears down his cheeks when he yawns. His fingers are only bare long enough to wipe the moisture away before he's pulling on his gloves.  
  


The sun is barely over the horizon; lowest edge still in contact with the Earth, and not yet bright enough that Silver has to advert his eyes from it's light.  
  


Staying and sleeping later would be easier than dragging himself out of his sleeping bag to wrestle into a heavy coat. It would certainly be easier than letting his Pokemon out of their Pokeballs one by one.  
  


Silver isn't used to easy, though, and he does just that, not saying a word as he slowly and carefully rolls his sleeping back up before shoving it into his pack.  
  


His Pokemon wait patiently until he's done, and where he'd normally bark orders at them to get moving he now only jerks his chin and starts off down the trail. Magneton and Haunter don't really need to come with any of them on their morning run. They have no legs to stretch, no bodies to warm up. Silver supposes, as he has several times now, that running though hiking trails with _any_ of his Pokemon is, ultimately, a waste of time.  
  


They're infinitely faster than he can ever hope to be, their stamina godly by comparison. When his breathing starts to go ragged their's stay calm and smooth, barely faster than when they would lay down to rest or sleep. When they had been smaller it hadn't been like this. Totodile had struggled on short legs and Zubat's stubby wings had slowly gotten louder with strain the more ground they covered.  
  


Nowadays, it's barely a warm up for them. Feraligatr will still have trouble keeping up depending on the terrain and temperature, reptilian blood cooled and making him sluggish, like he is now. Wind and rain can had made Golbat's wing beats return to an almost forgotten haggardness, and in the heat Sneasel's fleet-footed gait might stutter.  
  


Slowly, Silver had come to understand their interest in following him as a companionable thing. It took him a long time to realize it's why Haunter and Magneton like to tag along, and another embarrassingly long stretch to realize it's why any of them follow him at all.  
  


He'd thought, before, that it had been all about routine. That his Pokemon just liked to start their mornings the same way every day and knock the drowsiness from their limbs. The more time that had passed, though, Silvered began to realize that they're...happy to spend time with him.  
  


It's bizarre. Silver had so rarely shown any of them genuine kindness. He trained them amongst themselves, against themselves, and against anyone he thought was strong enough to be a challenge for them, all with cold efficiency. There had been no kind words for achievements because doing things right was what was expected of them.  
  


Finding out they were as starved for physical contact and affection as he is shouldn't have come as much of a surprise as it had. After training and eating Silver had always simply returned them to their Pokeballs for rest, not thinking anymore of it. If they were out, they had been training to become stronger. They didn't have time to lay in piles with each other like Silver had seen other trainer's Pokemon do.  
  


And he had certainly never let them cozy up with him. The few times Totodile had gone to receive affection he had been rebuffed roughly. Silver had told him to knock it off, quit playing, stop being a bother. It had never been a problem with Magnemite, who mostly seemed more interested in Silver's PokeGear than coaxing a hug or a pat out of him. Same could have been said for Gastly, who wasn't strong enough to become solid for touch anyways.  
  


Zubat, however, had been obnoxious from the get go. Silver had often questioned why he'd even bothered with the pathetic thing whenever it vied so strongly for his attention, and longed for priase it would obviously not be getting from _him_. One night Silver had wondered if it was some kind of familiarity, from his days among Team Rocket, and the realization had almost startled him into hating the Pokemon and thought restlessly of releasing him for over a week.  
  


Sneasel, too, had been a challenge. Having been whisked away from a loving trainer (but a weak one; Sneasel was horribly undisciplined and lacked moves he should have learned ages ago) instead of caught in the wild or snatched up at a young age like Totodile, and therefore he had had expectations. He was, and still is, known notoriously for breaking out of his Pokeball and refusing to go back in, sleeping by Silver's feet when they went to bed. When Silver awoke most mornings he felt the warm weight of Sneasel pressed between his shoulder blades.  
  


By this time the things Hibiki kept telling him seemed a little less far-fetched. Lance's words about how to "properly" train Pokemon would come back to Silver at the strangest times, like when Golbat would perch as close to Silver as he dared, happily trying to share whatever berries with his trainer that he'd found in the area.  
  


They evolved. Lived up to his expectations, and started to worm their way into a role that was less tools to be honed for battle and more...just _more_. He couldn't explain it.  
  


Silver had thought about his Father too much before. Sulked and scowled, knocked things over in rented roomed when his hatred towards the man seared at his insides and demanded some sort of action. His hostile intentions towards any Rockets and their Pokemon had, at times, scared his own Pokemon, causing them to balk uncharacteristically while in battle and hesitating to deal the kind of damage he was demanding them to.  
  


He hated Red for doing this to his family, hated that this was what his family was like.  
  


Hated that Red chose to live up on a mountain, and _chose_ to isolate himself, when Silver's own loneliness wasn't a choice at all.  
  


Hated Hibiki for his continued wins against Silver, most of them effortless, even though he coddled his Pokemon. Spoiled them, didn't have their absolute obedience in following orders like Silver had for his own Pokemon.  
  


Hated that when Lance beat him the first time he'd pitied Silver, and, even worse, stooped to pity Silver's Pokemon.  
  


It had all been overwhelmingly toxic. A strong and deadly poison that had leeched out of him, but by bit, as he undertook his journey. When what Hibiki has been saying all along started to really and honestly sink in it had been like sighing out a stale breath, one that had been kept in his chest far too long, and finally allowing room for something fresh.  
  


Yesterday Silver had watched his Golbat evolve.  
  


He'd known of the evolution, had even learned how to go about getting Golbat to evolve, and it was because of that knowledge he had solemnly resigned himself into thinking he'd never see his Golbat evolve. But he had, and the trainer Silver had won against saw Silver cry in his startled delight, something that embarrasses Silver still to such an extent even recalling the memory has his wind chapped cheeks grow to a still deeper shade of red.  
  


He'd been so _happy_ though. There hadn't been a second wasted before he was congratulating his new Crobat and throwing his arms as best he could around the bat, hug returned with four large wings that wrapped around him so thoroughly they blocked out all light. Crobat had purred and softly nuzzled against Silver's face, trying to stop his tears, but only serving to make Silver aware that both of them were crying.  
  


Silver turns his face skyward now to see Crobat wheeling through the air and trying out his new speed. He's impossibly fast now, moving out of sight if you so much as blink, but he was still getting used to his new anatomy.  
  


Sneasel's ears flick forward just as Crobat darts forward and over the next hill, and Silver has to work to catch up and keep him from going out of sight. It's now, for the first time, that he thinks he understands what it means to be a Pokemon trainer.


End file.
